Friday, June 16, 2017

I was doing a lot of Research and Development recently and I was trying to figure out why it is taking so long to update my block chain on Ethereum Network.

Apparently, every time I launch my geth sync mode, it hangs... and I really hate it.
Turns out, the laptop cannot take the amount of data to be pooled into it plug the whole database needs to be launched into the memory bank.

I used this command to launch the synchronization process

geth --cache=2048 --rpc --nat extip:35.185.184.162 --pprof --v5disc

where the cache is set to 2GB and ext IP is because my network is firewalled pass thru, but in itself, that is the direct IP address, useful for VPS or Google Cloud Compute.

Do note the whole stack (3,888,903 blocks as of 17 June 17) takes 24GB of space in the hard drive and it takes AGES to synchronise unless you have extreme fast internet, and SSD hard drive.

Of course it is faster if you could do an offline download.. and yeah.. I would be happy to do so, for a small fee. Just send some ether (0.01 will do) to my wallet (0x162c28e126a97d0009158fbda0ca93e6e9cc13d0) to cover the network fees and drop me a note on my facebook (@azrin619) that it's done... with your gmail address so you can access it.

If you do not believe how much the goblin took from me.. see this

I set 2vCPU with 8GB Ram and it went over the limit.
Just a warning.

And if you need to see where your money is..

geth --verbosity 2 console

and then you see the dreaded black screen... I placed the verbosity 2 so the screen is not garbled.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

After all the tweaking and stuff like that.. I found out that ETH mining needs loads of stuff...
And when I mean loads.. means tons.

Using Windows.. ETH Mining uses about 2.8GB of RAM and do not try to use a scratch disk aka page file. I tested and system auto crashed! Disable all your services and startup apps.. including all those crap Windows Installed.

GPU Mining needs a heck more. Seems per core requires almost the same as the DAG file gets huge nowadays.

I suggest you utilise the AMD Radeon RX480 as it has 8GB Ram on board and since most boards cannot load that kind of power usage... I honestly hope you are ready for a 1200W based PSU unit which will set you around $900. Most boards have 4-6 PCIe slots so U need a riser for that.

Typical configuration would be
i7 or i9 CPU,
16GB RAM
SSD 128GB Drive
4 x RX480 using CABLE RISERS. Use the SATA MOLEX power line to power up the 150W GPU.

In Essence, it would be 4 x 150 + 200W CPU which takes a full load of 800W and that is a low rough figure.

If I have it my way.. I will use the 24 core DUAL XEON 48 Threads E8840 V4 or even E5 2699 v5 will blow you away.

In terms of money wise.. the baseline system can already hit your pocket (4GPU) around S$3000, but still, if you don't mine with it.. you can play great games on it!